Gig Preparation

Gig Preparation
It is very important to bathe on a gig day. Scrub away the rooks that have taken residence upon my corpus since the last one. Then I over perfume, try on three different outfits, have tantrum because I look shit in all of them, decide on one, take the others along with a variety of pocket sized snacks, smear on make up in the car, get mascara wand in eye following a narrowly avoided head on collision, eat all pocket sized snacks to the point of bile rising, do soundcheck, get glared at, unless lucky, by other bands, stand in the toilets applying unsightly make up, get worried, get comforted by glorious band members, go on stage and only then is it all okay. Familiar?

Cor! I wish I had time to do all that before a gig. I normally spend the two hours beforehand rushing around trying to get equipment in the right places only to find that someone's swiped the most important lead in the world or that it's decided to stop working. After finding a replacement I rush onto stage in the same clothes I've been wearing all day and quickly sound check and do the gig. Afterwards I finally sit down and eat the first meal of the day which normally consists of a sandwhich cos I'm too shagged out to cook! Oh for the luxury of a day off to prepare. Saying that though, this Saturdays gig is one where I turn up, plug in, drink and play. The sound is sorted by someone else for once.

Now now, my friend, there is no day off here. All the above will be crammed into the hour before leaving. Of course I have little to do with leads. Nor Leeds although I have nothing against either.

Although admittedly I am not in a 'band' nor do I perform in 'gigs', I can more or less outline how mine would go. Turn up at venue. Get huge stagefright-induced panic attack. Run away from venue at top speed in floods of tears and hyperventilating.

And you would be marvellous my love.

My pre-gig ritual is as follows: 1)Get hideously plastered the night before. (N.B. This is entirely unintentional, yet always seems to happen). 2)Wake up late with a throbbing headache and a mouth like the bottom of a parrot's cage. 3)Load an ungodly amount of equipment into a grubby white van. 4)Unload an ungodly amount of equipment out of a grubby white van. 5)Wait two hours for the sound man to turn up. (This time is generally used to fret, smoke tabs and plaster self in make-up and hairspray). 6)Soundcheck, then flee the venue in case any mates turn up and try and expect to be able to indulge in intelligent (intelligble?) conversation. 7) Return to venue, sink an ale, apply yet more make-up and hairspray and take the stage... Not sure where I take the stage, mind. Possibly Utoxeter.

re: item no.5, ("Wait two hours for the sound man to turn up..."), last night when I accompanied the Pains to Cambridge, (to "do" their "mix" for them), I innocently inquired of the other bands when the house sound man was going to turn up... ...the answer was "well he's not, there isn't one"! Which was kinda :o , :shock: , :roll: and indeed :lol: Especially when it transpired that there weren't any microphones in the building :lol: At this point I had to apply my rather idealized and ivory tower knowledge of wires und electronics to the bizarre realities of this pub's sound system, in a very real and "my god, what HAVE they done with the other end of this cable that goes behind this bin and snakes away up the wall, across the ceiling, past the loos and put the other side of... etc etc" type way. But er yeah, in the end I got some stuff working and "frankly we all managed very nicely without the soundman" /sniffs haughtily/

Aye and if I'm gonna be singing at a gig, I do actually generally try to do some yoga beforehand? If that's not just simply too ponce-tastic to admit to..... ...but it never bloody ever works anyways, as you hardly ever find a suitable "quiet spot" to do it :( And the aforementioned ungodly amounts of equipment / grubby white vans scenario always seems to intervene instead. Plus certain dear friends and colleagues who "can't drive" deciding to "contribute in other ways" such as dutifully consuming enough alcohol for both of us etc etc :roll:

re: item no.5, ("Wait two hours for the sound man to turn up..."), last night when I accompanied the Pains to Cambridge, (to "do" their "mix" for them), I innocently inquired of the other bands when the house sound man was going to turn up... ...the answer was "well he's not, there isn't one"! / We'd deliberately declined the house soundman, because it adds an extra £50 to the room hire cost and we can't afford it! Especially when both The KSA and The Resistance contain experienced sound-folks - 'twould have been folly to have added a fourth soundman to the mix. However, normally we don't turn up to discover that the soundman has taken the microphones home with him for no apparent reason. They aren't supposed to do that. They're supposed to leave them in the Box Of Useful Stuff. You just can't get the staff these days, etc etc. May I also say "Hello!" and possibly even "It's a small world, isn't it?" Had I known it was you, I would have bought you a virtual pint.

Aye and if I'm gonna be singing at a gig, I do actually generally try to do some yoga beforehand? If that's not just simply too ponce-tastic to admit to.....: Not at all. Or rather, yes, but I concur and therefore, no. It is indeed tricky finding the right place for a downfaced dog or two. Although corpse pose often fits right in.

Hi all! After my complaint that I never have any time to do anything before a gig it actually happened! Before Saturday night's gig I had time for a nice relaxed breakfast a 2-course lunch in a tea room in Rye, a look round a record shop and finally to the gig. There were no problems with the equipment, it was even ready an hour before we were meant to go on. It was most confusing. There were even loads of people in the pub early waiting for us to go on. Brilliant!!! Incidentally, if anyone needs a sound man (if you can say such things in todays P.C. society) my services can be available for a few beers and possibly a sofa to kip on (depends how far the venue is). :D

May I also say "Hello!" and possibly even "It's a small world, isn't it?" Had I known it was you, I would have bought you a virtual pint. Oh right! Which one were you then? I was surrounded by gazillions of people I kinda-half-thought-I-ought-to-know that evening! But then (as John Cleese says in the Parrot Sketch), I'm sorry - I had a cold /snuffles/ But yeah actually, I found it quite nice to not have to apologetically attempt to "liase" with the stereotypical disinterested grumpo loon that most "house sound men" tend to be :) It's just a little bewildering to try and fathom out how on *EARTH* these contary people had wired together their digital crossovers and power amps and the machine that goes "ping!" etc etc. Kinda like cooking in other people's kitchens, only to find they keep their onions in the coal cellar. Or sthg. :?

I was the one with the long black coat, short brown hair and anguished expression. I don't normally look anguished - there has to be some extenuating circumstance, such as a disconcerting lack of microphones. But yes: in house soundguys do have a tendancy to be put out by unreasonable demands such as two singers, the presence of keyboards in the mix or a request that they actually be present in the room for the duration of the soundcheck... Although maybe I've just been unlucky in the ones I've had dealings with. I am loving the onions/coal cellar analogy. Good similie-ing, that man.

That's what this forum needs instead of smilies

I was the one with the long black coat, short brown hair and anguished expression. Oh that was you! Hello! :D They actually *DID* bring me down to this bizarre cellar full of old freezers, spiders, laudromats, lunchboxes and boxes and boxes of broken leads, all laid out according to their past beliefs. Or sthg. I found an XLR cable from amoungst them and we ascended back to the surface. It was ahine.

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